Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to NATO, wrote in Politico: “Managing the transition from a U.S.-led alliance to a European-led alliance is the number one priority. And NATO doesn’t need its leaders to meet every year to achieve that.”
Since 2021, the alliance has convened its leaders annually, using the gatherings as a public display of unity. This year’s meeting in Ankara, however, exposed the limits of a format increasingly shaped by efforts to manage Trump.
The Ankara Summit Declaration runs to just one page and six paragraphs. Critics argue that its formal language bears little relation to the profound crisis of trust within the alliance. Diplomats have already discussed abandoning the annual schedule after 2027, partly to avoid further turmoil surrounding Trump.
Trump’s Diplomacy of Disruption
Reports from the leaders’ three-hour meeting behind closed doors suggested that Trump had been relatively cordial and praised European countries for increasing their defense budgets. The tone changed sharply once the television cameras began rolling. The US president unleashed a barrage of criticism and insults against allies he accused of treating the United States unfairly.
Spain bore the brunt of the attack after years of failing to meet agreed defense spending targets. Speaking to reporters, Trump called Spain a “terrible partner in NATO” and later described the Spanish as “hopeless, bad people”, while ordering an immediate halt to trade with the country.
Italy and the United Kingdom also came under fire for what Trump described as their failure to support the US war with Iran. He then revived the question of Greenland, saying that the island “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark” because it was strategically important to America.
According to National Review and Politico, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte went to extraordinary lengths to appease Trump and preserve his commitment to the alliance. He also described renewed US strikes on Iran as “absolutely necessary”, arguing that Tehran had violated the ceasefire.
Before the summit, Rutte visited Washington and presented Trump with charts showing how sharply European defense spending had risen. One, headed “The Trump Trillion” in large gold letters, explicitly credited the US president’s pressure on the allies. The flattery was intended to keep the meeting, in the words of Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys, “as boring as it could be”, but it may carry lasting consequences for European security.
When Money and Loyalty Replace Values
Before Trump’s second administration took office, NATO was regarded as an untouchable pillar of Western geopolitics. Since the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the alliance’s expansion into Central and Eastern Europe had been associated with the promotion of democracy and the defense of shared values. Those ideals have now receded into the background.
In their place is a pragmatic, purely transactional approach in which military capability, influence, money and absolute loyalty matter most.
Trump has used NATO as leverage to advance US economic interests, particularly through large-scale sales of American weapons. The pressure has produced results.
At last year’s Hague summit, NATO allies agreed to raise defense investment to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035: at least 3.5% for core defense and a further 1.5% for broader defense- and security-related spending. Spain secured an exemption, while the remaining members face widely differing fiscal and political obstacles to meeting the commitment.
European allies have also begun rebuilding their neglected defense industries. In February, NATO launched Arctic Sentry, a new military activity designed to strengthen deterrence and defense in the Arctic and High North.
As Daalder argued in Politico, Europe can no longer assume that the United States will remain an unconditionally reliable security partner – a shift already reflected in the Trump administration’s moves to reduce parts of the US military presence on the continent.
Europe Takes Responsibility
According to National Review, NATO now faces two choices. European governments can wait in the hope that the world will return to its old ways after Trump leaves office, or they can begin a fundamental reform of the alliance. The first course is extremely risky. The second is the only realistic way to preserve NATO’s military effectiveness and political relevance.
That reform can mean only one thing: the accelerated Europeanization of NATO. Europe must assume full conventional responsibility for the defense of the continent, particularly its vulnerable eastern flank.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has already called for an orderly transition as the United States scales back its military role in Europe. He has warned that the allies need a clear roadmap and enough time to replace critical American capabilities without creating dangerous gaps.
